U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday fired all 22 members of the National Science Board (NSB), the body that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF). Many science advocates see it as the latest step by his administration to erode—some would say destroy—the independence of the 76-year-old research agency.
“On behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately,” reads a 24 April email from Mary Sprowls of the Presidential Personnel Office to each NSB member. “Thank you for your service.”
The NSB is a unique entity within the U.S. government. In addition to advising the administration and Congress on national science policy, it has statutory authority to oversee the actions of the $9 billion NSF, setting policy and approving large expenditures. Its presidentially appointed members, typically prominent academics and industry leaders, serve 6-year terms, with eight members chosen every 2 years. (The 24-member board had two vacancies when the termination notices were sent out.)
Keivan Stassun, one of the dismissed board members, says the mass firing is the latest indication the White House is ignoring the board’s authority and dictating policies at NSF, which has been without a permanent director since Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned exactly 1 year ago.
Stassun, an astrophysicist at Vanderbilt University who was appointed to the board in 2022, thinks the board’s public criticism in May 2025 of Trump’s proposed 55% cut to NSF’s current budget—which Congress ultimately ignored—antagonized the administration. “Maybe one way to say it from the administration's perspective,” Stassun says, “is that this group of presidential appointees was advising the Congress to not follow the president's wishes.”
The White House’s decision last month to ask Congress to give NSF $900 million next year for a new Antarctic research icebreaker is another example of how the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has prevented the board from meeting its obligations, says Stassun, who until yesterday chaired the group’s committee on large research facilities.
“OMB basically said very directly to NSF’s chief of research facilities that ‘you will build a new research vessel,’ and there was no involvement by the board, which is required to approve and authorize any major infrastructure investment by NSF,” Stassun notes. “And when the board asked, the response was, ‘Well, OMB was very clear in its directive.’”
The top Democrat on the science committee in the U.S House of Representatives, Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, today called Trump’s decision to fire the board “the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation. It unfortunately is no surprise that a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation.”
The dismissed NSB chair, Victor McCrary, decried Trump’s proposed 55% cut in NSF’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. “If the White House wants the golden age of science that Trump has promised, now is not the time to go backwards,” says McCrary, a vice provost at the Catholic University of America, who is serving a second term on the board. “Instead, we need to spend more.”
When this story posted, the White House had not responded to questions from Science about the reasons for the mass firings and any plans to appoint new members.
Lofgren worries Trump will “fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him.” But Stassun believes it doesn’t matter whether Trump restocks the board or leaves its positions unfilled. As proof, he points to the increasingly awkward conversations in the last year between the board and NSF’s top two officials: Brian Stone, Panchanathan’s former chief of staff and now designated NSF head, and Micah Cheatham, its chief management officer.
“We would ask them, ‘Are you following board governance directives?’” Stassun says. “And their answer would be, in effect, ‘We don’t listen to you anymore.’”
Correction, 29 April, 2:55 p.m.: There were two vacancies on the board when the termination notices were sent out. This story has been revised to reflect the number of members who were notified.